Diver v. Dog Breeder

It seems almost a dream to him: was there noise, the low clank of gears first lumbering into motion, the gush of water, that night? The Diver stands at the bank of the creek and looks south. He hears water cascade from some hidden source past the white spires of dead pine, but whether the hum he hears is only the usual strain of ten thousand crickets or the spin of one far-off dynamo... he isn't sure.

He takes a seat in the grass near the Grave Digger. They both sit just outside Stetson's new bean patch. Stetson gently covers the last row.

He'd been telling the Grave Digger a story. The Diver, whom Stetson acknowledges with only a perfunctory glance, catches it en media res.

The end of Stetson's story:

Then two men, from behind birch trees, one to the left and one to the right, called out, asking me:

Stetson, what is the frequency?

They asked again while they beat me. Again, again: Stetson, what is the frequency?

The next day, after stumbling back to the cabin, I read the note the Contractor left on my table. He wrote about the AM station, and he gave the frequency.

The Grave Digger scratches his chest, nodding, interested.

It was difficult decoding the signal at first. But I have books, and the Cryptographer and I spoke; he suggested combinations. But now its faded. Earlier, when I first uncovered the pattern, the forecasts happened just minutes after I broke the code. I found this sequence -

...there is nothing surprising in this substitution...
...many of them had red edges...
...the hall seemed to rise before my eyes...

- which was almost immediately followed by a rustling of the trees along the ridge to the west. I watched as a gust of wind galloped down the valley - knocking papers from lap. In the stillness that followed, butterflies flitted before me - many with red edges around black wings. The potency of the technique floored me.

But ever since, after every reading, the time between decryption and the occurrence of the event has widened. From minutes to hours to days to... well. If I can look ahead, it's only far, far ahead.

That's why I didn't expect this, he says, touching his crooked nose.

Stetson's story ends here. Discussion never returns to anything as interesting. Soon after, all return to their respective homes, and to bed.

The next morning the Diver's woken by the sound of wild barking. He sees a woman walking to grounds, straining against seven leashes attached to seven giant German schnauzers.